blog redirect

Now that I've co-founded Big In Japan, I wont be posting here for the time being. I'd like to refer you to two other blogs :

My personal blog : http://jasonhudgins.blogspot.com/

The Big In Japan blog : http://www.biggu.com/blog

three crazy weeks

The past few weeks have been very intense, here's basically what went down in chronological order :

* Hit by reduction in force layoffs at my day job.
* Panic a bit.
* Furiously begin searching for a new job.
* After two weeks, find and accept another job with a solid company.
* Meet another local Android developer (Rylan Barnes / GoCart).
* Investor offers to fund Rylan and myself if we join forces in a new entity.
* Panic some more.
* Gracelessly back out of new day job two days before I'm supposed to start.
* We get the new company (Big in Japan) up and running in record time.
* Today, GoCart and TuneWiki BOTH place top 10 in ADC round 2. OMG!

So that's the quick-quick-quick version of what I've been doing and why I haven't been posting here much. It looks like it's all going to end up quite well, at least, I'm very happy at the moment.

All my existing mobile projects (SocialTones and Geomata) are being transferred to the new business (Big In Japan), and will hopefully live on. However, the future of this particular blog remains uncertain. Future posts from me will most likely be on the Big In Japan blog.

This entrepreneur is well on his way to building a real company, thanks very much for joining me on my adventure.

I have to give thanks to my wife Ksenia, for putting up with all my off hours development, to Alexander Muse, for supporting us and believing in our potential, to Ryan Roberts, our lawyer who got the paperwork done so quickly, and Rylan Barnes for all his hard work on GoCart, it's a phenomenal application.

TuneWiki on TechCrunch

TechCrunch has done a very flattering profile on TuneWiki.

Why do I care? Because I've been doing some consulting work for them since early July to help with their round 2 effort for the Android Developer Challenge. I've had a lot of fun working with Zach Hobbs and Chad Kouse on this project, and I'm very proud of how far the app has come in these few short months.

My work was primarily on the mapping functionality. Zach originally pinged me because of the map experience I had from Geomata. The map stuff in TuneWiki is much more advanced than what I originally implemented for Geomata, although you can be assured that I'll be beefing up Geomata's map interface quite a bit before the next release.

And of course, my favorite part of the article:

"Perhaps most exciting is TuneWiki’s integration with location services. Because the player can optionally tell TuneWiki’s servers what song you’re listening to, it can offer an interactive map that displays musical tastes across the world."

Here's the video demo :

Developer Spotlight on Android Guys

Android Guys just profiled us in their developer spotlight series. Go check it out!

Startup Happy Hour 3

I've been pulling 80 hour weeks for months on end while trying not to burn myself out. It's a very hard thing to balance. The startup happy hour I attended yesterday was a bright spot. The enthusiasm there is infectious. Every time I've attended one of these events I've walked away feeling re-energized and eager to get back to work. This is probably for the same reason Paul Graham always suggests having a co-founder. It's important to have some peers going through the same struggles. They'll encourage you to press on, and you'll do the same for them.

Here's a list of some of the awesome people I met :

• Andy Chen, founder of Traxo
• Rob Homes, CEO of ipcybercrime.com
• Mark Blaskovich, EVP at Ayoka ( who paid the tab for this event, thanks!)
• Brian Mann, founder of Rank One Sport
• Lincoln Murphy, Business Development Manager for morph exchange

Looking forward to the next one!

T-mobile, 3G, and the dream..

Rumors are flying that sometime around October 1st, T-Mobile has plans to flip the switch on a new 3G network in many major cities (including Dallas) and release the first real android device, the HTC Dream.

From a business perspective, even if the rumors aren't true, October 1st is an excellent target date.

The goal is to have working versions of both SocialTones and GeoMata ready for release around the same time. We will be putting much greater emphasis on the SocialTones application. In short term, it has the best potential for generating a return, and with Architel backing that project, we will have the additional resources we need to ensure a polished launch.

SpringStage Startup Happy Hour

One thing I've learned from my conversations with Alexander Muse, is that I need to network a lot more with other entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts. He's giving us a great opportunity to do exactly that with the SpringStage Startup Happy Hour, starting on July 7th.

Networking has been a nagging problem for me. Between a full time job and a 10 month old son, any extra time I have is precious. If I'm out networking, then I'm not writing code. But if I know Alex, then this event is guaranteed to be worth skipping my usual evening hackathon.